


engage le jeu que je le gagne

by giidas



Series: i'm not sure i believe in beginnings and endings [1]
Category: Tenet (2020)
Genre: Discussions of Canon Suicide, Feelings, Fix-It, I fix it though! This time for real!, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Timey Wimey Stuff, discussions of canon character death, more like timey wimey fix it tbh but like you get me, no beta we die like men, technically, yes The Protagonist still doesn't have a name and i refuse to give him one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26195998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giidas/pseuds/giidas
Summary: It doesn't take you long to realize Future You won't be saving Neil.No, you think, he won't be the one to save him, because you will.
Relationships: Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)
Series: i'm not sure i believe in beginnings and endings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914220
Comments: 55
Kudos: 537





	engage le jeu que je le gagne

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【授權翻譯】engage le jeu que je le gagne](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26726197) by [noelle745](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noelle745/pseuds/noelle745)



> So I went and rewatched Tenet yesterday and was in the movie theatre all on my own (i kid you not) whch led to me making note throughout the whole movie, which led to this, a fic i did not use those notes for even a little bit.
> 
> Anyway, A TRUE FIX IT THIS TIME!
> 
> \--
> 
> and yes the title is a French palindrome and translates to _'Start the game so I can win'_ , which is honestly appropriate on so many levels that i couldn't not use it.

Standing there, above the now collapsed hypocenter, watching Neil get into the chopper with Ives— you’re fighting all of your instincts, every fibre of your being, not to follow him in that moment. And you think you should examine that at some point in the futurepast, because you’ve only known him for what, a month? The devastation you’re feeling, coupled with the adrenaline high of having completed the mission successfully, is messing with your head. Blinking away tears solves very little. You shield your eyes as the chopper takes off and wonder what you’re supposed to do now, with two parts of that fucking algorithm clutched to your chest and Ives potentially on your ass for life.

You can’t just stand here and wait, and just as you’re thinking that, a car conveniently shows up on the ridge where the chopper idled moments ago. It’s not a military vehicle like the one Niel left here, but the sort of sleek and black and clean that screams government. There’s no need to look around and check that no one else is here; the blast took care of that, forcing both sides to retreat, and it hasn’t been long enough that anyone would risk sending recovery units back just yet.

You sigh, put the two parts of the algorithm together so it’s one clunky thing to carry instead of two, and trek up the hill towards the waiting car.

The door opens on approach, and the driver inclines his head, but offers no words.

There’s a bulky looking silver briefcase in the backseat, and right behind it, a black duffel bag. Not giving a single shit about all the dust and crap that’s on your clothes, you let your body fold into the backseat and close your door behind you.

The driver takes off and you don’t look back.

—

So the way Future You has everything set up is impressive, you gotta hand him that, but you also want to punch that dude in the face so hard his head snaps back. He’s you, so he has to know how frustrating not knowing what’s going on is for you, and still he just— doesn’t give you all the information so you can form a full picture of the proverbial chess board. Nope, he just fucking gives you these crumbs, steers you around like you’re one of the pieces on the board and not the one playing the game. And it’s maddening, it’s going to drive you insane now that Niel is not by your side.

Fresh out of the shower at a fancy hotel, with no instructions about what you’re supposed to be doing next, you lie on the ginormous bed with your feet dangling off of it and you stare at the ceiling, trying not to go back to the moment when you realized just who it was down there, lying motionless, who you saw getting show in reverse? Getting _un_ shot? Just who it was you saw get up from the dead and—

But he didn’t, did he.

That’s the thing about fucing with time, you think to yourself, you get so tangled up in the loops of it, how are you supposed to make sense of it in your head, that Neil is dead but not?

At this moment, there is a Niel who is alive and there is a Niel who is dead.

You try and let that sink in, but your brain refuses to accept that the Neil you’ve met, the one that knew you too well, who came up with ridiculous plans and backed you up without blinking an eye, the one who smiled at you like there was—

You close your eyes, take a deep breath.

The Neil you’ll meet in the past, he won’t know about this mission. He’ll know you, you think, but he won’t know _this_ you, the you that woke up after chewing on a poison pill, after effectively committing suicide to save his team. Who woke up to find out he failed and is now supposed to be a part of an organization that is trying to save the world from a threat that hasn’t even been born yet.

You can’t understand why you haven’t done something to stop it. There must be a way, there has to be. You get up from the bed, refastening the towel around your waist, and grab the stationary provided by the hotel. You knock the pen against the notebook as you mull over where to even start— The main timeline, or what you think of as the main timeline, because who the fuck even knows if it actually is one. Future you probably does, you think with a roll of your eyes.

You sketch and you write it out, the loops you did and their dates, and the implications are daunting. How are you supposed to go years into the past? You’ve managed a week in a shipping container, ten days on a cargo ship where you could roam free.

Jesus fuck, you think, as your blood runs cold and your breathing speeds up.

—

You pour the tiny bottle of bourbon into a tumbler— no ice, you’ll down it in two gulps anyway— and you wish Neil was here, with his little smirk, so you could tell him you’re technically not on a mission right now, and he can shove it, thanks.

In the quiet of the room, the sound of the empty tumbler as it clinks against the glass top of the conference table is deafening.

You run a hand down your face, press thumbs into the inner corners of your eyes, and you see whiteorangered stars behind your eyelids. You should probably get dressed, you think. You haven’t been given a timetable and you don’t want to be caught in this state of undress if you need to move on short notice. There are some slacks and yet another polo in the duffel bag and you throw that on, take out the shoes and put them by the bed, leaving your feet bare. Fancy hotel has heated floors and a plush carpet, and sinking your toes into it gives you a weird sense of calm.

As ready as you’ll ever be, you plop into the armchair and finally let your brain think about the fact that if you want to travel years into the past, you might just have to— go through the turnstile and then go sit tight in a fucking safehouse somewhere out of the way, where you won’t be found.

You stare at the off-white ceiling and wonder how you’re supposed to stomach that.

You wonder if future you considered that you might pack your things and make a run for it. You’re a dead man after all, you could hole up somewhere— You snort. If you’re gonna hole up somewhere? Might as well do that while travelling back in time, you laugh at yourself. Fuck, you think, and get up to take one more of those small bottles from the minibar.

A knock on the door stops you in your tracks, and your body and training take over.

You’re shielded from a possible line of fire, gun in hand, when the person behind the door speaks up.

“Uhh, I was told to bring food at 19:30 exactly?” says a cracking voice in an accent, and you hear what sounds like shoes shifting in the carpet of the hallway and something rattling on a tray. You hesitate, because this would be such a classic move to pull, and you’d hate to fall for it, hate for this to be the way you die for the second time. But then the person knocks again.

“Mister Goya? Are you in?”

Rolling your eyes, you tuck the gun, with the safety back on, under your polo and your pants, hoping the loose fit of the slacks will manage to hold its weight in place. You open the door, shielding your back from view.

The delivery boy looks startled but recovers fast, fake smile in place before you blink. He inclines his head and pushes the tray laden with food at you, mumbles something, and leaves. You raise your eyebrows, but dismiss him, filing him in the _no threat_ category.

There’s a big envelope under the covered dinner plate, thankfully missing a red _confidential_ stamp which is the only thing that could have made it more obvious. Still though, you think. An _envelope._ You shake your head and take it from under the dinner plate, and uncover the plate just to see what you ordered for yourself. Burger and fries, don’t mind if you do. You open the envelope as you munch on a fry.

It’s a deed to a house.

Future you should just be glad he’s not here in person, you think, and fight the urge to— you don’t even know. Your appetite gone, you throw the rest of the fry back on the plate. You figured it out moments ago, and for some reason this feels like rubbing it in, even though you’re sure it’s not, you’re sure it’s just— what? Your own way of giving yourself time and space to come to your own conclusions, to make your own decisions? A facsimile of free will? More like a mockery of it, really. You haven’t even consciously decided if you were actually willing to go through with something like this, and yet, here you have proof that you will, that you already have.

Cleaning the salt and grease from your fingers with a napkin, you take the deed fully out of the envelope and a smaller piece of paper falls out of it as you do.

A business card, printed on thick paper, with the numbers creating little divots in the smooth surface.

A phone number, not an American one, not a British one either. The duffel bag had a burner phone in a side pocket and you think about getting up, dialing the number, finding out what your next steps should be. And then you look at the dinner, at the expanse of the empty room you’re in. You think back to the shipping container, to Neil’s assurance that he’ll tell you his life’s story if you’re both still standing, after, and if you still care.

Well.

You care.

As for the other one—

You take a deep breath and get up.

—

As much as you’d love to curse out your future self some more, at least he knows you prefer doing instead of idling. You finish checking the room, steal a couple more fries from the plate, sling the duffel bag over your shoulder and head for the stairs.

You’re pretty sure someone else is gonna take care of the check out and the bill.

—

Sitting in the driver’s seat of yet another nondescript car that you got by nodding at a man who made Significant Eye Contact, you give a fleeting thought to the person whose job it is to set all this stuff up and how they handle the sheer absurdity of it. You start the car and turn on the gps, following the voice and directions on the screen while imagining a young person sitting behind a desk in a grey cubicle, being told to just get a car ready and that it needs to have these and these coordinates pre-programmed and also yes, you heard that right, the handover will happen based on a hand gesture; no words, no signatures, no nothing.

You wonder if this whole futurepastpresent Tenet organization also birthed an underground network of other companies that cater to their every need, no matter how outrageous or absurd the need might seem to them.

This train of thought can only entertain you for so long, though, and you have a couple more hours before you reach your destination. If you were the one behind this, you’d have yourself change cars at least once, too, so you know you’ll be on the road through the night, possibly well into tomorrow.

You put on the radio and check the compartment under the armrest between the front seats.

A couple of energy drinks and some energy bars. Nice.

You open a can one handed while holding it between your thighs, managing to not spill any of the contents on your pants, and settle in for the rest of the drive.

—

It takes 16 hours to reach the turnstile and you’re stretched so thin by the end that you almost crash the car you’re driving. You think it’s the third one. Maybe? Your jaw clicks as you yawn and your eyes water from the sheer relief of being allowed to be closed for more than a millisecond.

They’re waiting for you, though, a whole team of people that ushers you inside a building and starts gently or not so gently manhandling you in different directions, handing you things and taking them away a moment later. On some level you know you’re safe here, but there are alarm bells going on in the back of your mind all the same. But then you spot Wheeler, who nods at you, and you finally allow yourself to relax.

Someone’s walking alongside you, running you through the arrangements that are made for you on the other side, and you do your best to memorize what’s being said. Go through, settle in yet another shipping container— and who would have thought those would be such a handy mode of transport?— and then wait to be delivered to your final destination, somewhere, some _time,_ is about the gist of it. From the corner of your eye, you see someone bringing crates towards the turnstile, and hope that someone is in charge of those because you’re just about ready to keel over.

You look to the left and see yourself getting out of the opening, walking slowly down the ramp, crates being wheeled behind you. You nod at yourself and go in.

__

You wake up in the back of a van. There’s a moment of confusion, your body going from sleep to absolute alertness in less than a second, but before you can shoot up from the cot you’re lying on, you remember being redirected to the van instead of the shipping container, just as you were about to get into it. You release a sharp breath and run a hand over your head, back and forth.

When you check your watch, you find out that you’ve slept for more than 12 hours. That means you haven’t even got back far enough to be at the point where you left the hotel. Once again it hits you just how fucking inefficient this sort of ‘time travel’ really is, and that this is probably why Posterity just sends messages. Much easier to bury a piece of paper than to send an agent back, having him sit somewhere for decades— Yeah, no.

You think about the deed to that house, and shudder.

A bottle of water and yet another protein bar serve as a breakfast and you can’t help but think fondly back to that espresso you didn’t get to finish at the Freeport. Chewing on the fake-strawberry smelling piece of cardboard that calls itself a strawberry cheesecake flavoured protein bar, your mind clears a little more and you go back to review the information that you got before you Inverted. And the change of transport, at the last second.

At first it looked like they were settling you in for the long haul, the info and the sheer number of crates with supplies hinting at weeks, not days, but then— you close your eyes and think back to right before they changed course. There was a lot of bustling and background noise, which is unavoidable with the amount of people that were there, all of them doing something, but you’re pretty sure you heard a phone ring. You focus in on that and yeah, your eyes, even as tired as you were, followed the noise and you saw Wheeler flipping open her phone and listening to a message, and then you turned back around to watch where you were going. Not long after, you were redirected. Huh.

So, Future You messing up his own plans? Future you realizing that— what, exactly? You just lost a man in action, a man who already saved your life twice, who saved it for the third time now, and paid the ultimate price for it, and that maybe you’re in no place to lie low for weeks, months, _years;_ that your brain has been going over every second of the pastfuture mission, trying to figure out a way that would get shit done, but also get Neil out of there mostly intact?

One sentence about a beautiful friendship from that tall cocky British—

You take a calming breath.

You won’t let him die.

And Future You is obviously in agreement.

—

You didn’t let him die.

You start with that.

He’s not dead, and now you just have to retrace the steps, follow that thought, see how the two of you managed to pull that one off without disrupting the mission, without sending anyone else in. You think back to Neil always starting the presentation of his plans with that smirk and a _you won’t like it,_ and you know it’s a running joke, that neither of you ever much like the absurd plans you come up with. The more you think about it, the more you realize this one had to be concocted by the both of you. Neil wouldn’t have approached you, didn’t think you’d be there, after he got on the chopper and so—

A plan starts to slowly form, and at first it’s hard to grasp but once you figure out you have to be on that chopper, the rest of the plan comes to you as if you’ve always known it.

You wouldn’t let him die.

You _didn’t_ let him die.

That thought settles something deep within you, something that was raw and angry and hurt and trying to lash out, and soothes its ragged edges. Makes it easier to breathe, to think.

You focus on the plan, not allowing your brain to examine that can of worms. You shouldn’t be— you haven’t even known him a month, for christ’s sake. It shouldn’t be personal, not like this, and then you see the trinket on a backpack, see a body rise from the ground only to catch a bullet meant for you, and you know it can be nothing _but_ personal.

_You didn’t let him die._

—

The van shakes much less than you’d expect it to, considering the state of the roads in this part of the world; you very much doubt you’re on a highway— it doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, because you know where you’re going, and the route the driver is taking doesn’t change the destination. There’s just enough room, with your cot folded up, for you to work out, and you’re grateful to whoever was in charge of putting this van together. You drop down and start a series of push ups, and you keep going, counting but not, measuring your progress by the burn in your arms and shoulders, by the way your core muscles strain and start to quiver when you hit the hundred mark. You only stop when you’re gritting your teeth against the ache, when it’s almost everywhere, when the next shudder of the van would threaten the rhythm you’re in. You go through the series of stretches that are so automatic by now, so ingrained, that you don’t even think about the correct posture and when you breathe in and breathe out; your body takes over, your brain just a passenger, full of endorphins, along for the ride and silent, if just for a moment.

When your muscles feel loose and your breathing is on its way to normal, you sit on one of the crates that line the front of the van, and look at the duffel bag that you moved from under the cot. You haven’t opened it yet, because you’re pretty sure it will confirm the plan that’s been taking shape in the back of your mind, slowly but surely, from an idea that you could barely grasp to something that feels solid and dependable. You want, ridiculously, for this plan to be yours, your idea, not something that has been influenced by Future You’s actions. It feels essential for this to be something you alone are responsible for.

A deep breath, and you go over it in your head, puzzle pieces of things you didn’t know before but know now, or think you know, falling into place, filling the empty spaces, reshaping the pastfuture into something more palatable, less devastating, less unacceptable.

The knowledge that there’s a way, that you’ll make it happen, make sure that no matter what you think you saw, Neil will walk out of that hole in the ground, once again helps settle your mind and you tug the duffel bag closer to yourself and unzip it.

You’re glad you’re alone, because you’re pretty sure the smile on your face couldn’t be described as anything less than deranged.

—

You’re sitting in the chopper and Ives is the first one to spot you. He raises an eyebrow, and then he looks over his shoulder to where you’ve just had a conversation, mere minutes ago, during which he heavily implied he’d kill you if he ever found you again.

You know your expression betrays nothing and you also know Ives is one of the few you can, and will, trust with your life. He beats you to it, though.

“Knew you couldn’t let him do that,” he says as he drops heavily into the seat across from you.

“Did you,” you say, not even phrasing it like a question, intonation flat as anything. Ives’ only response is a small shake of his head, an almost smile on his lips that he tries to hide by ducking his head and checking over his piece of the algorithm.

Neil comes in a couple of seconds later, hair windswept, the smile you saw on his face when he left you gutted and devastated, is slowly falling away. He raises his eyes and sees you and something passes between you, something beyond time and space; there’s an understanding, and you think you know, you know _why._

_You didn’t let him die._

When the moment breaks, Neil smirks, and then his face breaks out in a big smile, biggest you’ve seen on him yet, and he throws his head back and laughs, one bark, two, and you think you see relief painted all over his face, in the loosening of his shoulders. And you understand, on a fundamental level, the wash of reliefhope at the possibility of a hail mary, when you thought you were done for.

He sits down next to you and claps his hand on your knee, and squeezes. Once, twice. And then leaves his hand there.

He doesn’t need to say _I would’ve done it anyway,_ because you’ve seen it, you _keep_ seeing it every time you close your eyes for longer than a second. You look at his hand on your knee, look at him, alive and well, sitting right next to you and repeat your mantra.

_You didn’t let him die._

You turn your mic on and tell the pilot to go. The rotors drown out all sound and the chopper lifts from the ground. You don’t look back, don’t try and catch a glimpse of your past self.

Neil takes his hand away and leans back, closes his eyes.

You don’t mourn the loss of the contact, you tell yourself as you flex your fingers, you don’t mourn it and you don’t mourn anything or anyone else either.

He’s sitting right next to you, exhausted but very very much alive, and you’re gonna keep him that way.

—

Timing is everything, timing is _always_ everything. There’s no room for doubt or hesitation; every part of this plan needs to fall neatly into place without disrupting the original mission.

The medics are ready, medbags loaded up on a stretcher. Chopper’s on standby. Ives went back a little further so he could infiltrate Sator’s camp and get to Volkov’s gear. Neil is putting on his reinforced helmet, testing the weight of it.

You’re inspecting everything with a critical eye, but everyone here is well trained, and most of them have been at this time nonsense longer than you— well, than this you, anyway. So there’s no need for rousing speeches, pep talks or anything like that. Everyone knows their role.

You look at Neil, who’s putting on his harness, and your legs are moving before you make the decision to approach him and check his gear. Visual check only, you tell yourself, but you end up knocking on his helmet anyway.

He raises his eyebrows in question.

“Go open that gate,” you tell him, staving off any other emotional words that might follow by turning away from him, from his face half hidden by a breathing mask.

This is not the last time you’ll be seeing him, this is not goodbye.

You are not sending him to his death.

The countdown’s on and a beep alerts you all that it’s Time.

—

The field’s a mess of bombs going off and _un_ going off, clouds of smoke billowing from one explosion site and rubble assembling itself in another.

You watch the horizon and know that in a minute or so, if time was moving as it should for you, Ives will be dividing the algorithm somewhere up there, and Neil will tell you that this is the end of a beautiful friendship. And you’ll refuse to accept it.

You think of a snake, eating its tail.

You think of Neil saying _doesn’t matter, they believe it._

You think of paradoxes.

Another beep brings you back to reality.

A small opening has been cleared off in the rubble, just enough for Neil to get through. You watch him drop from the chopper, unhook his line, and sprint to the tunnel to save past you. _This_ you.

Everything’s a matter of timing now.

Time it so that Neil lies there the smallest amount of time possible without disrupting the original mission, time it so that you can approach without alerting Sator’s men, time it so that this chopper just looks like any other one that’s passing around, dropping off and picking up soldiers.

As the chopper slowly makes its way towards the top of the hypocenter, you see another one _un_ drop someone in off-white camo, and you know it’s Volkov.

Your pilot knows what to do. The rest of the journey to the opening simultaneously takes years and seconds, time distorted by the nervous energy that’s trying to consume you. You’re above the opening and the medics are hooked in, jumping from the chopper, and when they give you the signal, you send the stretcher after them.

Then they all disappear from view, and you wait.

“We got him,” one announces.

You don’t ask for status, you can’t—

“He’s alive,” the first one confirms.

“Pick up!” the second one shouts into his mic and you press the button on the rotator, bringing them up up and in. They barely clear the opening in the ground when you hear a frantic _INCOMING_ in your mic. You manage to brace, but the hit never comes.

Your blood runs cold and you swear your heart stops, just for a second—

“What the fuck!” one of the medics shouts and while you want to share in the sentiment, you bark out a harsh _Report_ into your mic.

“Someone from the ground took it out before it could connect, no hit, we’re 100%,” a voice confirms and the chopper starts moving in its original course, the stretcher and two medics almost close enough that you can bring them in.

When you do, the two only take a second to unhook their harnesses before they go work on Neil. His helmet comes off, his breathing mask too, quickly replaced by the smaller you all wear when Inverted. There’s so much blood, blood all over his face, staining his hair, but he’s alive and you know that head wounds bleed so much it’s frightening, you know that, and still a tiny part of you doubts their assessment, wants to come closer and check his pulse with your own hands.

You don’t.

Instead, you settle into your seat and watch them work, let yourself be calmed by the fact that they’re not being frantic, calmed by their methodical and precise movements, by the way the two work as one, each an extension of the other.

—

Every trained agent knows their gun as if it was a part of them, but few, if any, check the magazines. You can imagine it as if you were watching it with your own eyes: Volkov disassembling his gun, cleaning it, assembling it again, clicking in the magazine, safety on-off-on, holstering it.

No way for him to notice some of those bullets were blanks.

No way for him to know that when he shoots Neil, he’s not delivering a fatal blow.

The blank, the reinforced helmet, the metal plate held in place by Neil’s breathing mask; none of those could have saved him, individually, but together? That’s a different story. The blank pierced the faceplate of the breathing mask and then dented the metal plate protecting Neil’s forehead.

The plate didn’t fully hold, wasn’t even expected to, but absorbed enough of the damage that all Neil has is a nasty cut and a slightly nastier concussion. The concussion wasn’t helped by the fact that he then fell, hitting his head on the platform. The helmet prevented any additional head wounds, but couldn’t do a single thing to protect his brain from sloshing around in his skull, so soon after the trauma caused by the bullet.

It takes the medics maybe fifteen minutes to close the cut, assess the severity of the concussion, and assure you that Neil’s going to be just fine, in about a week or two.

You’re actually glad when you see the shipping container is already waiting for you, loaded with supplies and ready to go.

You’re told how often to wake Neil up, what to check for, the questions to ask him, meds and dosages, and when the medic asks you to repeat it all back to her, you do, carefully watching her face for any sign of unhappiness. You don’t see one, and she nods her head in approval when you’re done.

—

Neil sleeps for 14 hours, interrupted at first every hour on the dot, then every two, before he stays awake on his own for longer than a minute.

“Can I sit up,” he asks you, already pushing himself into a half-seated position, eyes tightly closed and mouth a thin line from what you think is a bout of dizziness.

You hand him a bottle of water instead of berating him, and watch him sip at it slowly. He must be parched, but knows better than to drink too much at once. He opens his eyes when he’s done, and looks at you as he puts the cap back on the bottle.

“So,” his expression turns from slightly pained to droll, “we’re both still standing.”

“Are you asking me if I still care?” you say, tone incredulous.

He looks down at his hands and shrugs. You sit down on your cot, right across from where he is, and lean your elbows on your knees, linking your fingers between them.

“No,” you say, “I don’t want to hear your life’s story.”

He doesn’t flinch; nothing in his expression or posture changes. He knows you too well, you think to yourself. Knows you too well for his own good, for _your_ own good.

He looks at you, and waits.

“I don’t wanna hear it,” you repeat, “because I’m going to be there, living it, aren’t I.”

And it’s not a question, and so you don’t need an answer, aren’t waiting for one. The corner of his mouth ticks up, a muted version of his usual smirk.

He lies back down, letting the water bottle drop from between his fingers, and just before he closes his eyes, he looks at you, too knowing, and doesn’t say a single thing.

—

One minute, the air in the container is thick with tension and the next you think you must have imagined it. And so it goes.

Neil’s a good actor, or most probably, very good at compartmentalising. But you notice how much he says by not saying anything at all.

It’s in the way he hands you the rations you prefer, the way he wakes you with his voice only, the way he reads your facial expressions and your body language.

You’re both holding back from something that you don’t want to name.

You, because you’re pretty sure _this_ is the Neil that saves you at the Opera House, which means you’ll be leaving him here as you go further into the past to recruit a Neil that doesn’t know you at all.

Him? Well. Probably because he knows why _you’re_ holding back.

You tilt his head back so that you can see his forehead more clearly. His eyes fall closed when your fingers push his fringe gently away from the bandaged wound. You don’t let yourself wonder, don’t let your thoughts wander, at the image he makes; you focus on your fingers instead, on carefully removing the bandage and inspecting the wound which was carefully stitched up to minimize scarring. There are no signs of infection and the wound seems to be healing nicely, in your not so expert opinion. You apply the healing ointment and then reapply the bandages.

Your hands fall away from Neil’s face and you turn around, snap your gloves off and throw them into the garbage.

You know why he’s holding back.

Because he _has_ a you, and you’re not there, not yet.

—

The freighter docked some hours ago and you know the container will be up for unloading soon. You’re both packed and ready to go once the doors open. You’ve carefully not been looking at each other for what seems like days now, and you feel like there are ants crawling under your skin, eating you alive.

—

There’s a whistle, and then the container is being unloaded from the truck you’ve been on for the last half an hour. You’re both ready, duffel bags thrown over your shoulders.

Neil is already watching you when you turn to him, observing you with that detached-but-not expression of his.

“You’re going back to recruit me,” he says, not a question, a mere statement of fact.

There’s been something building, between the two of you, and inside of you, since you met. Since _you_ ’ve met this Neil. And you can’t let it go unsaid, because even turning back time wouldn’t bring you back to this moment. So you look at him, at the fringe falling into his eyes, at the bandage on his forehead, a forever reminder of what almost happened, and finally into those eyes that _know_ you, ~~in~~ explicably.

“I care,” you tell him, not fighting the emotions that are trying to make their way into your expression, knowing that he’ll be able to read them. His eyes soften at your words and he turns to face you, let’s the duffel bag drop from his shoulder.

His fingers barely make contact when he moves them to touch your cheekbone. They settle on your neck, four points of barely-there-pressure, and his thumb rests on your jawline, nail scratching at your beard.

You close your eyes, can’t watch everything that’s swirling in his, left unsaid but not.

“I know,” he whispers into the space between you.

And you suddenly can’t do this, realize what a monumentally bad idea it was. If you do this now, you’ll never be able to send him away, to go into the past, _alone,_ to recruit a younger version of—

A forehead, half bandage half skin, is pressed against yours, and your heart calms down, your shoulders losing the tension from a moment ago, and Neil drops his hand from your neck to clutch at your shoulder, at your biceps.

“ _I know,_ ” he repeats, and then you’re both destabilised as the container touches down on solid ground. Neil’s hold on you is not broken, though, and he squeezes your biceps before he moves both his hands to your neck, thumbs once again rubbing patterns into your beard.

He kisses your forehead and you finally open your eyes as he lets you go.

He’s watching you, a bittersweet smile on his face.

“I miss you,” he tells you, and even though you’re both right here, you know exactly what he means.

And if you know anything about yourself, you also know one thing for certain:

“I’m waiting for you on the other side.”

The doors of the container open, and before he puts his breathing mask on, he turns around with an almost-smile on his face and tells you, “You always are.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3 comments and kudos give me a dose of serotonin, so if you have something to say, don't hesitate! and if you wanna scream about these two, look me up on [twitter](https://twitter.com/giidass) or [tumblr](https://giidas.tumblr.com/)


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